Interbeing: New and Selected Poems on Ecological Spirituality

By Eugene C. Bianchi

Interbeing is Eugene Bianchi's fourth collection of poems. It reflects two concerns of later years: first, his own experience of nature--ecology--which has become a spiritual road for his own self-awareness; and secondly, in a larger context, the increasing threat to all life on earth which looms ever-larger with global warming.
These concerns reflect Bianchi's long career as a writer and teacher, first as a member of the Jesuit order and then as a professor of religious studies at Emory University in Atlanta for over thirty years.
This book of poems, coming late in life, makes Bianchi especially aware of the gradual development of one's spirituality. The poems blend the secular and the religious into one voice as specific life events unfold in immigrant beginnings, Jesuit experiences, the ups and downs of being married, the professorial life at Emory, novel and memoir writing, ethical issues of war and peace, and participation in a local Buddhist sangha in the spirit of Thich Nhat Hanh.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Jan 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781725288911

Eugene C. Bianchi

Eugene C. Bianchi is a Professor of Religion Emeritus at Emory University. In addition to his many books and articles, he has written two novels. He has also served in leadership roles in educational and religious organizations.

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Interbeing

New and Selected Poems on Ecological Spirituality

Eugene C. Bianchi

Interbeing

New and Selected Poems on Ecological Spirituality

Copyright ©

2021

Eugene C. Bianchi. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199

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97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-8889-8

hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-8890-4

ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-8891-1

01/26/21

Table of Contents

Title Page

Reviews of Previously Published Collections

Acknowledgements and Thanks

Introduction

Gene, You’re Slowing Down

Being Judgmental

Anxiety

Aging Toward the Gentle

Halo Mystics and Sweaty Mystics

Pantheism

Journey

A Pope Who Blows Kisses

For John Bugge

Grateful at Eighty-Eight

Sudden Disappointment and Anger

Healing of Ordinary Mind

Melatonin Dream of Aging

Are Mystics Unaware?

Gift from Sleep Apnea

Good Enough

We Before Me . . .

The Woman Who Was Free (2015)

Assisi’s Goose (2008)

Return of the Monarch Butterfly

Agere Contra

God at My Elbow

Venturing Toward Vibrancy

Poems and Old Age

Cage-Free Aging (2013)

The Hard and the Soft

Zen Helps Sleep

Max on Hardship and Hope

Late Love

Learning Love in Physical Contact

Growing Toward Union

Rescuing Each Other

Seeing with the Heart

Winter Garden Serenity

Talking to Myself as Prayer (2008)

The Hum of it All (2017)

Chewing Down My Barn (2014)

Listen to the Silence (2014)

Feeling Fog, Feeling God (2014)

A Secret Voice

A Fraternal Farewell to George

With Age and Loss

Selving

A Personal Koan

The Brokenness of Things

Coda

Interbeing

The Irony of Eco-Suicide (2014)

Are We Being Good Ancestors?

Red Lycoris

Militarism and ROTC

Listening

A Fall Dance

Cat Naps

Cat Max to the Rescue

Black Snake and Cannabis

Palliative Healing

Today’s Leviathan (2015)

Denmark Returns (2015)

From Two to One

Mother Earth Day

Super Bowl Sunday 2019

Memorial Day Contrarian

Are We Gods?

Sewer Mural Awakens

On the Verge

Immigrants

Optimist-Pessimist

My Last Car?

Gods

Football and Violence

Poets Rally on Earth Day

Blind to Our History

Hail to Heroes

The Core Problem

Half-Way Zen

White Supremacy

Creation as Home

A Walk with Mary Oliver

About the Author

To my younger brother, George

(

1936–2019

)

a feisty and caring companion

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here. So we can say the cloud and the paper inter-are . . . You cannot point out one thing that is not here (in this sheet of paper)—time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the rocks, the trees that become boats, the sunshine, the cloud, the river. Everything coexists with this sheet of paper . . . this sheet of paper is, because everything else is.

—from Interbeing, Thich Nhat Hanh

Reviews of Previously Published Collections

Ear to the Ground (2013)

These are the poems of a grown man who has endeavored to gaze steadily at his subject(s): love (see Peggy!), lyrical arguments for tolerance of all kinds, sly humor, and every poem, every one, is infused with gratitude and joy. (Thomas Lux, God Particles)

These poems are replete with the wisdom of age and the exuberance of youth. Bianchi celebrates our common plight with the mind of the philosopher and the eye of the poet. (Charlotte Barr, The Text Beneath)

Chewing Down My Barn (2014)

In this collection, we accompany the poet on his long journey to tenderness along with Christian mystics, saints, Tao masters, and notably, his Siamese cat Max—master of the God who naps.. . . These are pithy, thoughtful poems, filled with compassion, self-insight, and frequent saltings of humor. (Clela Reed, The Hero of the Revolution Serves Us Tea)

Eugene Bianchi’s poems reveal a healthy maladjustment, a holy irreverence which merges insights from a life in academe with Christian, Buddhist, and delightfully agnostic views . . . everything is grist for his imagination. He writes poems about contemplative aging as a way of better dying. (Don Foran, Transitions in the Lives of Jesuits and Former Jesuits)

The Hum of it All (2017)